boast to Europe of their honour, of their laws, and their liberty. British faith will be buried in the hospitality of the Bellerophon. I appeal to history: it will say that an enemy who for twenty years made war upon England, came freely in his adversity, and claimed the protection of its laws. Could he give a more flattering proof of his esteem and of his confidence? But how did the English reply to so much magnanimity? They pretend to hold out a hospitable hand to this enemy; and when he gave himself up to their faith, they sacrificed him.

240. Here we have all the vanity, all the dogmatical nonsense, all the wild notions, all the affectation of smartness, of a French coxcomb. He did not come voluntarily on board the BELLEROPHON; he came to save himself from the dangers of war. He was engaged in war against England; he was in flight from the arms of England; he came under a flag of truce, and did not surrender himself; he was a prisoner of war, and not a guest. The captain received him, not in consequence of any particular orders, but received him as a fugitive enemy, and spared his life; and, therefore, in making him a prisoner of war, and treating him as such, the captain laid no ambush, and did not forfeit his honour and tarnish his flag. The observation, that "British "faith will be buried in the hospitality of the "Bellerophon," is either bad translation, or downright nonsense. His claiming the protection of our laws; the very expression shows,

U

that he had no clear notion of what law was. Our laws gave him no protection, other than that of war. He was an alien; as such it was in the power of the King to order him out of his dominions, as it would have been in the power of Captain MAITLAND to have refused to receive him in any other capacity than as a prisoner of war. For him to talk of esteem and confidence is another instance of baseness: but what does he mean by "magnanimity?" The conduct of our Government was very bad, but it never held out the hand of hospitality to him; and it did not, and it could not, pledge its faith to him.

241. The English government acted a very bad part in this case. He was an alien-enemy; a fugitive from actual fight against England; he came in that character, and, to save his own life and his plunder, he surrendered himself on board an English man-of-war. He was, therefore, according to all the principles and usages of war, and according to the laws of England, a prisoner of war; and if our government had acted the part which became it, it would have kept him prisoner of war, until the signing of a treaty of peace with France; and then, as in the case of all other prisoners of war, it would have set him at liberty, or have landed him in France. Instead of this it determined to keep him a prisoner for ife, he having committed no crime against the ws of this country; and it, therefore, was guilty

of that, which every just man must condemn. But he was not a guest in England: and there was -no violation of law in not setting him at liberty. To St. HELENA he went; and there he remained, and talked away the rest of his life, while his gabbling companions were writing down his words, or pretended words, to be moulded into books, for the amusement of the idlers who lounge about in public reading places in England. This sort of life he led, having every thing that he wanted to eat, drink, and wear, until the 5th of May, 1820, when he died, and when he was buried in that same island. Towards the close of his life, and indeed for several years before that, intelligence relating to him became a matter of curiosity rather than of interest, and of slender curiosity too. Great battles tell well for the day; but, the hero who wins them must end well, in order for the battles to be recurred to with interest. Lord NELSON, lucky throughout his life, was still more lucky in his death. His victories will always be remembered with delight, and never be spoken of unaccompanied with his own name: but victories fade, when he who has gained them has faded.

242. The great error of NAPOLEON arose from his incurable vanity. He had under him the bravest armies that the world ever saw; the nation who sent forth those armies bade him go and put down all tyrants; he proceeded well in

the work, and would have finished it; but he would himself be a tyrant; he would himself be the head of a dynasty of tyrants; to the last moment the at once ridiculous and impious arrogance clung to his heart; to his last hour he would be called "Emperor :" and, perhaps, 66 your Majesty," were the last two words that saluted his ears. The French nation sent him forth in the name of liberty; they gave him the power to fulfil their desires and commands; he misused his power, he betrayed his trust, and he had his just reward; and though the British government acted unjustly in the case, God has ordained that one crime shall, in most cases, be punished by the commission of another. It may be truly said of him, as Dr. JOHNSON said of Charles the Twelfth, that

He left a name, at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral, or adorn a tale.

243. Having dismissed this man with quite as much ceremony as he deserved at our hands, we must now go back to the high allies, and see how they proceeded to effect the humiliation of the French people, and the discouragement of all other nations to attempt a resistance to despotism. PARIS was full of traitors to the French nation: there is very little question of monstrous treason having been at work, in the army, before, and at, and subsequent to, the battle of

WATERLOO. We have seen before, that the allied crowned gentlemen had a million of bayouets to push forward at the breast of France; but still there is every reason to believe, that there were forty or fifty times as many guineas employed to effect this great object. The financial accounts of this year, as published by the House of Commons, served to explain this matter pretty satisfactorily, for the expenditure for this one year amounted to a hundred and thirty millions of pounds sterling! So that this was not a cheap victory, at any rate. The victory was, in fact, purchased: and it is the debt, arising, in considerable part, from this one victory, which is now (1833) shaking this great kingdom to its very centre, and bringing our ancient establishments tumbling down about our ears.

244. The allies did not push at once to PARIS, till Austrians, Russians, Prussians, Hanoverians, and all had got together, so as to enter France at all points in the north and towards the east; and in order also to give the treason at PARIS time to get NAPOLEON out of the way by some means or another. His "flight" was a very curious affair. He had about two hundred miles to go to ROCHFORT, in Brittany. He got there perfectly in secret, though he had a retinue, as we have seen, of upwards of fifty persons with him, and had forty or fifty large cases of plate and jewellery, and valuable effects: all which savoured